Women
by Soladwi
Summary: There are many people in Yusuke Urameshi's life, and each have their own stories to tell.


Keiko Ukimura once had simple aspirations in life. Grow up, become a chef, own her parent's restaurant, marry a decent guy, and become old and happy like the faces all around her, that smiled at her from dusk to dawn as if to encourage her, letting her know that one day she could smile like that too, if only she lived her life just as they had. Keiko would always smile in return, and promise herself that one day, she would be imparting that wisdom onto the next generation.

Then one day Yusuke Urameshi came along, and all her aspirations changed. It wasn't an immediate conversion, it was a gradual shift, an eventual departure from all her plans. His spirit encouraged her to pursue school more dutifully, rather than simply as a means to an end. His very being made her decide that one day, not only would she be happily married, she would be happily married to Yusuke Urameshi, restaurant optional. And so it remained that way for the next several years, with Keiko always striving towards that one, oh-so-attainable goal.

Botan once had no plans for life. Or rather, her after-life, since as an immortal spirit she wasn't entirely sure what she had qualified as a "life" in traditional standards. Once, she knew she had centuries of days to pass, none of which called out to her, begging her for direction. She had her job, she had her oar, and she had her life planned out to unplanned perfection.

Then one day Yusuke Urameshi came along, and all her aspirations changed. She would wake up in the morning not knowing what the day would bring, and it bothered her. Oh, it didn't get her down because she was Botan and she was nothing if not up-beat [after all, what does an immortal flying beautiful girl such as herself have to worry about in life?] but it did worry her. Her whole system was uprooted. No longer could she take her time, flying about, but instead she began to plan each day around interaction. Particularly interaction with one supposed-to-be-dead human who had a fire like no other. The rest of her life started to line up with the rest of his life. And before she knew it, Botan wasn't just making plans for today or tomorrow, but for the days ahead, for the long term future she envisioned. And in every scenario, he was in it.

Genkai once had no aspirations, but plans aplenty. She knew how every day of every year left to her was going to play out, and she had no qualms with it. Her golden age was over, as the wrinkles on her face would tell her day by day, forcibly reminding her of a time when she didn't know her plans because that was the way there were, but because she had _made_ them that way. It often seemed like she was stuck in transition, with a bright something behind her and a bright nothing ahead of her. But there she waited, peaceful as who she had always wanted to be.

Then one day Yusuke Urameshi came along, and Genkai became unsatisfied. She found a new meaning for her life, a revival of her old one. Now instead of training her own body rigorously, she was training another in her place. With every second faster he ran, with every punch he took, Genkai was there with him. Practically inside him, partaking in the joy of success and feeling the bite of loss. Not that she would ever let him know that. Suddenly simply drifting away into life was no longer an option. She had someone to provide for a, dare she say, family to see to. And for some reason this didn't cause her the stress she strived to convince the others it did. It didn't cause her anything but a strange joy, and instead of peacefully awaiting her own passing she began dreading it, her looming death once more a painful extinction rather than a gradual fading.

Shizuru Kuwabara once was normal. She was a normal teenage girl, and then she was a normal young woman. She had a vague idea of how her normal, average life would turn out, but she didn't care for the details. Shizuru lived in the now, never unaware of the future but never fearful of it either.

Then one day Yusuke Urameshi came into her brother's life and that all changed. Kazuma was dragged into his mess, and following him like any normal, good intentioned sisted Shizuru was dragged in right alongside him. Yusuke's world opened her senses, widened her aspirations. It introduced her to unfamiliar sights, people, and emotions that she had once dared to believe she might never feel. It touched her normal, average, woman's heart and made her feel above average, special and very much normal for a very much too short period of time. And when that feeling died away Shizuru was left emptier than before, with more space inside than she had previously known, and no other way to fill it than to once more throw herself into the whole mess that had created the gap in the first place. But now she was living not for the next, normal day that promised its own ups and downs but evened out in the end, but for the next crazy day that might very well be the last in a long and crazy series.

Yukina once was unaware of her aspirations. She lived isolated in a world of frozen women, of beautiful statues that had no need for aspirations or dreams because they were statues and there was no need to worry about decay, or the passing of time. She once saw nothing wrong with this because she was a statue herself, only a little different. But she never saw, never acknowledged that difference because she never knew what it was. It simply _was_. And that was okay.

Then one day she was led out on a simple whim, and before long that whim had doomed her to a seemingly endless future of repentance for a kindhearted foolishness. And in had come Yusuke Urameshi and his shining band of soldiers, and her whole understanding of the world was tilted on its access. She had opened Pandora's door to a world of new discoveries, and a whole new range of emotions that came with. Some were good, like how she felt whenever she caught Kazuma peeking out at her from the corner of his eye. Some were bad, like when she would sit all through the night, taking advantage of the fact that her demon heritage would make her appear fresh and rested come morning even though she had held an all-night vigil for her wandering warriors, her band of mismatched heroes. It was times like that when Yukina felt a stirring in her chest, an unfamiliar burning not directed towards anything but seemed to whisper threats in her ears, to push against her tongue, begging for release. This burning died down whenever her troop came back in the morning, when they each in their respective pieces. Only then would the burning cease. But all the while it threatened, promising to follow through and burst out should a single thing be out of place.

… _Yusuke_…

One day Yusuke Urameshi was a boy. The next he was an apparition, a man returned to life under the grace of powers higher than his for actions that no one thought him capable of. And it wouldn't be just once. It would be time and time again, until they added up to more numbers than there were to count and suddenly, he was a leader that many aspired towards and many more looked up to. Over the course of time he would become the focus, the link, the promise of a better tomorrow for so many, and over the course of time, he would never realize it.


End file.
